


Magpie

by matrixrefugee



Category: Doctor Who (2005), Torchwood
Genre: Gen, language due to period-specific Values Dissonance.
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-20
Updated: 2019-04-20
Packaged: 2020-01-16 08:57:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,177
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18518167
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/matrixrefugee/pseuds/matrixrefugee
Summary: A London raggamuffin filches something important from a former Time Agent...





	Magpie

**Author's Note:**

> Written for [Author's choice, author's choice, gotcha!](http://fic-promptly.dreamwidth.org/166540.html?thread=7474060#cmt7474060) Set possibly during Jack's years in the Time Agency, or during his wanderings between Children of Earth and Miracle Day.

_London, 1600s_

Pickings had been thin this day, even though it was market day and the crowd was thick for a change: Cromwell and his men had raised the taxes to the point where even the rich folk had trouble keeping a decent amount of coin in their purses, which made it harder for urchins like Ruby Teilho to magpie about the thinning crowds that wandered about the market place. If it kept up like this for much longer, there would be more beggars than involuntary benefactors, and more cut purses than purses to cut. And if it really did keep up this way, Ruby would have to start turning her skirts to earn herself bread to keep body and soul together.

Till she spotted a likely mark in a doorway, chatting up Slattern Lucy, the redhead with skirts more grubby than the gutters she swanned about. A fine looking fellow like him should not want for company, least of all one of Lucy's kind. With a comely face and a dearly made greatcoat like his, he should be courting the favors and winning the hands of duchesses, not cheap doxies, and here he stood, talking to that strumpet, as if she were a duchess. Ruby would have to work fast, before the slut made the toff's purse lighter and beat Ruby to it.

Ruby slid a hand under the wide sleeve of the man's greatcoat, feeling for his pocket, finding his sleeve with his arm inside instead. She started to withdraw before her fingers brushed against it hard enough for him to feel her. Then her hand knocked against something leather, something thick, a buckle fastening it. Was this man carrying a purse strapped to his wrist? She made quick with the buckle, unfastening it, slipping it free as quick she could, then slipping off sidewise before he could spot her. Not that Slattern Lucy would: she only had eyes for the flashy man.

Ruby headed down an alleyway, out of sight of the marketplace and careful not to hurry, finding a doorway of her own, in which to examine her find. A thick bit of leather, fastened by brass nodes of some kind covered the thickest part of the object. It seemed to have some give to it, and so she set to work prying on it, wondering if this covered some pouch containing coins.

Instead, it covered a thick plaque of some kind, its silvery face etched and raised, with odd protuberances and a soft blue light glowing in one part of it.

Not coin, but perhaps Old Joe the rag and bone man could find someone to buy it off her for coin. Perhaps a lot of coin, enough to keep her fed for weeks, even get decent room of her own. Maybe even buy her some clothes so she could find work as a scullery maid. Anything to get her off the street and into a house.

She pressed a button on the face of the thing and it started to hum, the light to grow brighter.

Then a hand came down, heavy, on her shoulder. She looked up, expecting to find a constable, but instead, she looked into the face of the toff with the flashy coat.

"I think you've got something of mine, if you don't mind my pointing it out," the flashy fellow said, taking the strange machine in hand. He came so suddenly, she did not think to grab onto it.

"Oi, if you let it go so easily, you shouldn't get it back so easily," she snapped back.

"Oh yes, I can, since it's mine and my ticket out of this place," he said, strapping it back onto his wrist.

Ruby clapped a hand over the buckle, keeping the toff from fastening it. "If you're so clever, how'd you get yerself hoodwinked by an urchin?" she argued. "Too busy chatting up Slattern Lucy, you were. Now pay up?"

"How's that?"

"You want to buckle yer wotzit, you pay up."

He stood back on his heels, trying to pull his hand free of hers, but she clamped down on it with her free one. Clearly he was not exactly ready to accept her terms. "How much?"

"How much that wotzit worth to you?"

"Vortex manipulator."

"Wot?"

"It's a vortex manipulator. Now how much do you want?" he said, reaching his free hand inside his coat.

"All yer cash," she said, as he pulled out his purse.

"Done, now hands off the merchandise," he said.

She was about to take his purse, when the world around them suddenly turned bright and a blue light surrounded them. Before she could scream, everything jerked sideways.

The violent jerk stopped and the world unfurled around them. As soon as her head stopped screaming, she looked around them: carriages without horses wheeled past them at a terrifying speed, emitting shrill blats. The toff dragged her out of the path of one, onto an embankment covered in short green grass, bowling her over and inadvertantly falling on top of her, though he quickly rolled off her.

"What manner of madness are *those*?" she cried, eying the carriages, the riders staring out the clear glass panels in the sides.

"Automobiles: self-propelled carriages with a firebox inside to fuel them," the toff said. "Won't be invented for another three-hundred years."

"And that engine of yours?"

"Told you: vortex manipulator. Bends the fabric of space and time, allowing you to travel anywhere and anywhen in either one," the toff replied.

"If we weren't in this strange place, I would say you were mad. Or a magician," she said. "Bring me back to London town."

"We're in London," he said. "London three hundred years into your future."

"Now I am certain you are mad: take me back, if your engine can return me," she insisted.

"How can I refuse a pretty girl when she's so insistent," he said, pressing more protuberances on his wrist strap and giving her a smile that made it clear why Slattern Lucy looked so pleased; if she were a few summers older, Ruby would not have minded where or when he took her. "Now hold onto my cloak."

The world grew bright again and she felt it jolt as the void took them backward.

They emerged in the same gritty alleyway again. Ruby let go the magician's cloak, hurrying away from him.

"Running off so fast?" he called. "I could use a traveling companion."

"Not with a madman. Or a magician," she snapped back over her shoulder, putting as much distance between them as she could.

She barely noticed, until she had found her way deep into a web of alleys, that something heavy thumped against her thigh. Reaching into the pocket of her tatty skirt, she drew out the magician's purse, heavy with coin. Proper silver coin, though she did not recognize the face. Silver was silver, no matter the mint.

But how had he secreted it into her pocket, without her knowing, unless he were as much a magpie as she?


End file.
